Quote:
Originally posted by Bill Cody:
At least presently, I think what happened is the Zannichellia died off naturally in its annual cycle. It is an annual. Many annuals die off once the seeds are fully mature such as curly- leaf and narrow leaf pondweeds. The abudant monoculture dieoff and decay caused the oxygen sag. Part of your bloom could could have also died at the same time. To prevent this in the future I would do at least one or two things or a combination thereof. 1. When pondweed is growing well remove at least 25%- maybe 40%-50% of it from the pond. 2. Introduce a competing submerged species that will tolerate the water movement from the sweeper nozzles such as eelgrass - Vallisneria. Eel grass typically develops in mid summer and remains viable through fall into winter.
Agreed.

Can I apply a herbicide early on to knock back the horned pondweed bloom? I have the same plant community every year, so I'd assume I'll be dealing with the same issues in 2008.

I have several of those beautiful floating islands created by Bruce Kania's company. Could I use an agressive emergent plant such as cattails on the islands to compete for nutrients? It seems like a lot of the biomass currently being committed to pondweed could be transferred to cattail mass. My cattails love the light salinity of the water, and seem to stay green right through late fall.

Holding a redear sunfish is like running with scissors.